Recently I was conversing with a friend from Romania and we got to discussing consumer access to the Internet. Not surprisingly, connectivity in Bucharest is substantially faster than what I have here in the Boston area (even though I have Verizon FiOS service). Anyway, rather than go by two isolated samples, I thought to look at the international records at speedtest.net to see averages of many, many measurements.
Download measurements
Notice that the first three measurements on the Boston side are business services, not things a consumer could afford. On the Bucharest side, Voxility is a wholesaler but #2 and #3 are selling to anyone.
Upload measurements
Yes, it's one rather specific set of measurements, but still...
City comparisons
The greater Boston metropolitan area has a population of ~4.5 million making it the largest city in New England and the tenth largest metropolitan area in the US. Bucharest is the capital of Romania and the Bucharest metropolitan area has a population between 2.15 and 3 million. Bucharest is a bit older than Boston and today has a bit higher density, while Boston has somewhat more high rise buildings. Still the cities are not so dissimilar that it would explain the wide divergence in speeds of Internet connectivity.
I'm originally from Romania, and the lack of competition for broadband in the US is something that irks me to no end. Things should be the other way around.
Posted by: Vlad | April 19, 2010 at 08:45 PM